Campbell has also been awarded a prestigious Lannan Residency Fellowship, which provides uninterrupted writing time for poets, writers, essayists, scholars, curators, as well as indigenous, environmental and social justice activists in Marfa, Texas. This is a valuable honour, coming so quickly after the publication of his recent poetry collection. This award will allow Christian to finish his book and work on other projects over the summer.

Professor Christian Campbell of English has been recognized with the 2010 Aldeburgh First Collection Prize for his poetry collection, Running the Dusk.

Campbell, who considers himself a Caribbean poet, is a Rhodes scholar who earned his PhD at Duke University. His teaching and research interests include Caribbean literature; black diaspora literatures and cultures; cultural studies/popular culture; poetry/poetics; post-colonial theory; and creative writing.

His current research includes a book-length interdisciplinary study of the life and work of actor Sidney Poitier.

Judge Jo Shapcott praised his poetry collection as a “bravura performance,” describing Campbell’s poems as “energetic, fluid and musical and full of loss, hope and imagination.”

Campbell was thrilled by winning the prize, noting, "Let’s just say that I’m ‘feeling good’ in the Nina Simone way! I’m honoured to be a part of a moment of great energy and transformation in contemporary poetry in the U.K. It’s very, very difficult for any young poet, and for any Caribbean poet, to get this level of recognition.”

The Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, established in 1989, was the first UK award designed to recognize and benefit a poet at first book stage. In addition to a prize of about $4,800 CDN, receives an invitation to read at next year’s 23rd Aldeburgh Poetry Festival (4-6 November 2011), plus a week’s protected writing time on the East Suffolk coast.

Learn more:

• Caribbean Studies Program Website
• Admission Information and Program Overview
• Lannan Residency Fellowship